Primary Objective
by pacejunkie
Summary: Daniel Faraday finally reveals his real reason for coming to the island.


**Title:** Primary Objective

**Rating:** PG/K 

**Summary:** Daniel Faraday finally reveals his real reason for coming to the island.

**Characters:** Daniel, Jack, Bernard, references to Desmond and a surprise guest or two

**Word Count: **2,158

**Disclaimer:** I didn't own Charlie and I don't own Faraday, but they're both made of awesome.

* * *

He was here. He was finally here.

Daniel Faraday could hardly believe his luck. Years of research could at last be put to the test. This was his final destination, where all roads led.

Each of his party had come with a personal agenda that didn't quite match but that wasn't Dan's concern. Sure, he would be lying if he said he wasn't a _little_ concerned about the hazmat suits and gas masks, but it was like he said – he wasn't responsible for the packing – so he put it out of his mind. For the most part, his teammates kept him on a need to know basis. They needed a physicist, and he needed to find this island.

So now here they were, only it wasn't as uninhabited as they had been led to believe. Dan kept his lack of surprise to himself; while the others may have been clueless, he suspected that they might find someone -- At least one _particular_ someone anyway, if the rumours were true.

He and Charlotte were now on the beach with Jack's group of flight 815 survivors, the ones who wanted rescue. For some reason it turned out not all of them did, but that was another thing Dan didn't worry about. These people had been here for three months, living in crude tents and sharing food, commune style. They had welcomed him in but were clearly jumpy and suspicious. Their guns might have had something to do with that, but Dan's crew had been told it was hostile territory and they had to be ready for anything. Truth be told, Dan wasn't comfortable with his gun. He could explain the physics behind how it worked but he had no desire to ever use it. It wasn't who he was. Leave all that to Miles.

For his first morning on the beach Dan wasted no time. He opened his briefcase and took out a small rectangular device, roughly the shape of his satellite phone. Switching it on, he swept the surrounding area, checking the readout, muttering to himself over the results.

"No…no…wait, maybe…better…"

"Can I ask what you're doing?" asked Jack, approaching him and speaking with that now familiar tone, as if Dan were a jumper out on a ledge.

Dan startled at the interruption and looked up. "Uh…just, uh…checking some… things."

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the instrument in Dan's hand.

He nodded, acknowledging it. "It's an electromagnetism detector. It reads the levels of electromagnetism in the air."

"Why?" asked Jack.

"Just…an experiment?" he replied with a shrug. When it came to science and the nonscientist, Dan often found the less said the better. Keep it simple, or watch as their eyes glaze and their minds wander to things they can grasp.

Jack gave him a look that said he thought Dan was odd, then shook his head and walked away. _Odd but harmless_, he must have concluded, which was good enough for him, since he left Dan to continue his work.

Levels were higher in certain spots, almost nonexistent in others. When he came to a tent that was practically off the scale he stopped, grabbing the first person he found. It was an older, stocky male with a droopy face.

"Excuse me, whose tent is this?" Dan asked him.

"Nice to meet you too," the man said, slowly as if prompting him. "I'm Bernard."

Dan mentally slapped himself for forgetting his social manners yet again. "Hi Bernard. I'm Daniel Faraday. Could you tell me whose tent this is?"

Bernard looked at the tent quickly. "It's Desmond's."

"Did you say Desmond?" asked Dan.

"Yeah, Scottish fellow," he said. "He wasn't on the plane with us. He spent most of his time here working for Dharma in an underground hatch."

Dan stared, hanging on his every word. "Can you show me where this hatch is?"

Bernard frowned. "No, I can't. But I can show you where it _was_."

_

* * *

Oxford, October 2001_

The student pub was packed and Daniel squeezed his way through the crowd, searching for a place where he could sit and review his lesson plans. He was only a month into a two year fellowship and he hadn't learned British etiquette yet. _Was this the country where it was okay to share a table with a stranger? _

Well he had no choice if he wanted to sit. Looking around, he tried to find a potentially friendly face when the invitation came at him from behind.

"Professor Faraday?" said an accented voice.

Daniel turned around to see a dark skinned man at a small table whom he had met his first day here at a physics department gathering. He was terrible with names though.

"I'm sorry. Professor…?" he began with a look that said, _help me out._

"Donovan," the man said, indicating his spare chair. "We met at the banquet. Please join me."

Dan sat, as his mind churned to come up with small talk. "So, have you been teaching here long?"

"Five years," said Donovan. "My focus is on universal probabilities. What is your area of interest?"

"Electromagnetism and its effect on wormholes," said Dan. "It's the subject of my thesis."

"That's highly theoretical," said Donovan, sipping at his beer.

Dan sat up straighter and spoke with his hands, as he always did when he got excited. "Maybe, but I've been collecting evidence for two years now that says given the correct conditions, we could control space and time."

Donovan's eyes went wide and he stared, and Dan felt himself deflate a little, as he always did when he explained his theories and people looked at him afterwards as if he were a mental patient. He was prepared to be laughed all the way out of Oxford when Donovan leaned in close and said something that shocked him.

"Do you believe in time travel?"

* * *

He knew without a doubt that he was on the correct island now. There was a hatch, just as Donovan said there would be.

With his head down, eyes on his detector, Dan walked behind Bernard, watching as the levels rose higher with each step. They were heading towards ground zero, he was certain of it.

Donovan had told him that his friend Desmond had claimed to have been inside a hatch on an island in the South Pacific when there was an electromagnetic event that sent him hurtling through time and space. At the time he had brushed off his friend's story as lunacy but shortly before Dan's arrival at Oxford, his friend Desmond had gone missing. When Dan told him about his research, it all came back to Donovan and he began to wonder. Could it be true, and could the information that Donovan had help Dan to find his friend?

Thus began a three year crusade to locate the island that was the answer to all his prayers, the one that could turn his theories into fact, transform him from a madman to a genius. His heart raced as they tromped through the jungle, closing in on their quarry. The instrument's readings were practically off the scale now; he had never seen anything like it. Around his feet he noticed debris, scattered across the jungle floor. Finally Bernard came to a halt about three feet away from where the ground seemed to disappear altogether.

"Here we are," he said, indicating the hole.

Dan walked slowly to the edge, looking down upon an enormous crater.

"This was the hatch?" he asked.

"This was it," Bernard confirmed. "According to Locke, it imploded."

_An implosion._ Well, the data supported the possibility of implosions but he had never seen anything like it. It was as if the entire structure had been sucked into its center by a black hole. Dan couldn't believe that anyone who had been inside it could have gotten out alive. Then he realized that there was really only one way.

But where was the proof?

"You said Desmond woke up in the jungle and didn't remember what had happened?"

"That's right," said Bernard. "The first one back was Charlie and he couldn't remember anything either."

Desmond wasn't here to talk to; he had gone off to the freighter with Frank in search of answers, wanting to know why Naomi had his picture. Dan had to bury his surprise when he showed up at the helicopter the day before -- he hadn't been ready to reveal anything just yet.

"Could I speak to this Charlie?" asked Dan.

Bernard made a face as if he were struck with indigestion. "I'm sorry, you can't. He died two days ago. He drowned switching off the signal jammer so that we could call you for help."

Dan sighed. "Is there anyone else who was there when this happened?"

"Well there was Eko, but he died too. And Locke, but you wouldn't be able to talk to him. He's avoiding you people and if he saw you he'd probably take you captive or shoot you."

Without Desmond, he was at a dead end for now. Locating the hatch was an excellent beginning, but it was still no proof that Desmond had actually time travelled. Dan knew he needed more, and he was prepared to stay on the island for as long as it took, unless his crewmates threatened to leave him behind of course. He still hadn't found out exactly what they needed him for.

"I guess I'll have to wait until Desmond gets back then," he said.

"Oh there is one more thing," said Bernard as they started back. "I don't know how important it is, but when the hatch imploded, I was on the beach. The sky turned purple, there was this loud noise, like a vibration and then the hatch door landed and nearly killed Claire and her baby."

Dan stopped, confused. "You say the hatch door blew off from here and landed _on the beach_?"

"Yeah, that's over a mile. It must have been some powerful blast," he remarked.

"But that's just it, there was no blast," said Dan. "There was no explosion, this was an _implosion_. Everything caved in on itself, so how could the hatch door fly away?"

"Good question," said Bernard. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Do you still have this hatch door?" he asked.

"Yeah, we use it to carry stuff," he said, looking happy that he could help. "It's back at the beach I'll show you."

It was impossible, Dan knew. There was only one way that hatch door could have travelled that far, and that was by time/space travel. The electromagnetic buildup in the hatch must have created a stable portal through which both Desmond and the hatch door travelled. Desmond landed in London in 1996, and the hatch door went forward or back by mere seconds and arrived at the beach. When Bernard had described how it appeared in the sky, it struck Dan that it seemed to arrive just as the test payload had from the freighter, 31 minutes late. Both had just dropped from the clouds.

Dan smiled to himself, elated. This was his proof. It was what he needed.

_

* * *

Two weeks ago_

According to Minkowski, they were eighty miles offshore. Everyone was getting tense but especially Naomi, who was the first one to go in. She was sitting in the galley finishing her coffee when Dan sat next to her.

"You okay Naomi?" he asked her.

So looked at him and nodded. "Mr. Abbadon told me that there were no survivors of the crash. That the island would be uninhabited, but Frank insists there was a conspiracy. He believes the wreckage they found was staged. I don't know what I'm going to find there."

"Well…you'll be armed, right?" said Dan.

"I'd rather be armed with a cover story in case anyone finds me and asks what the bloody hell I'm doing there," she said. "He said I wouldn't need one but I'm starting to wonder."

Dan felt a stab of anguish at her expression. He liked Naomi and he wanted to help her in any way he could. Suddenly he had a thought, and he reached into his pocket and took out something that Donovan had given him three years ago.

"Here," he said, handing her the photograph. "This guy's name is Desmond, and the lady is Penelope Widmore. If you find anyone, just tell them you were hired by Penelope to find Desmond."

She looked at the picture of the happy couple at a marina, confused.

"Who are they?" she asked.

"They're…they're your cover story," he said. "Desmond may have…travelled here."

She smiled, placing the photo in the middle of the book she had been reading. "Thanks mate."

Dan smiled in return. He didn't need the photo anymore; he had the image burned into his brain. Giving it to Naomi was a sign of good luck. Desmond was here, he had to be, and he would find him.


End file.
